'Why do they give weapons to Israel and food to us?' - World - Times Online

'Why do they give weapons to Israel and food to us?' - World - Times Online:
From Daniel McGrory in Beirut

THE fanfare marking yesterday’s arrival of the first American aid to Lebanon was scorned by Esam Haider and 2,000 fellow refugees living in an underground car park after their homes were bombed by Israel.

Mr Haider, aware of recent reports that the US was accelerating the delivery of new missiles to Israel, was furious. “Why does President Bush send billions of dollars of weapons to Israel and hands the Lebanese a few boxes of food and blankets?” the 24-year-old chef asked.

“Is he just trying to fatten us up before he gives Israel bigger bombs to kill us?” he said as his nine-month old daughter slept on the concrete floor of the vast supermarket car park in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Shortly after the aid ceremony at the US Embassy, Israeli jets dropped four more 500lb bombs on the southern suburbs, shaking the underground car park as its inhabitants prepared for another nervous night.

AID LEAGUE TABLE

Saudi Arabia:
$1 billion to prop up Lebanese currency
$500m for reconstruction
$50 million emergency humanitarian aid
USA: $30 million
Kuwait: $20 million
UAE: $20 million
EU: $12.6 million
Britain: $9.2 million
Sweden: $5.5 million
Morocco: $5 million